With the recent expansion of the International Educator Institute, Denver Public Schools has instituted a mandatory policy required of all who wish to participate in one of our visa sponsorship programs. The criteria educators must meet are clear:

1. Hold an equivalent of a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Education

2. Have college/university transcripts, certifications, and licenses evaluated and translated into English by a NACES-approved organization

3. Have at least three (3) years of professional teacher of record teaching experience in the last five (5) years

4. Be in good standing with a clear background check (from home country if outside the US) AND

5. Demonstrate English proficiency (e.g. CEFR - B1)

Not all of our positions qualify for visa sponsorship. The role must meet the all of the following criteria:

• In a traditional school (district-run and not a charter school)

• 1.0 Full-Time Employee (FTE)

• Contracted

• Must be in at least one of our "hard-to-fill" qualifying roles:

  • For Teaching roles: ELA-S* designated roles, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), Special Education, or Career and Technical Education (CTE)

  • For Specialized Service Providers (SSPs): Audiologists, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Nurse (TN visa only for Mexico and Canada), Psychologist, Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), or Bilingual School Counselor

  • For other educator roles: Newcomer Center teachers and Arabic-required roles are reviewed case-by-case as not all qualify.

*ELA-S (English Language Acquisition - Spanish) is a transitional native language instruction program. In this program, educators teach core subjects such as Elementary Education or secondary subject using Spanish and English, while students learn English as their second language.

IMPORTANT: The district will not consider candidates who require an Alternative Licensure Program for our visa sponsorship programs.

For more information, please review our Eligible Educator Positions for Visa Sponsorship.

DPS offers J-1 or H-1B Visa Sponsorship to candidates that secure a qualifying teaching position within our district. This means a candidate has to first receive a qualifying job offer from one of our schools before we can consider visa sponsorship on their behalf.

DPS reserves the right to determine which visa sponsorship will be offered to a candidate upon receiving a job offer. This means that candidates do not get to choose which visa they would like to receive, they will be informed which one will be offered to them based on an assessment of their situation.

Please review the DPS Requirements section on our Visa Sponsorship Guide.

Our hiring season for visa sponsorship applicants is between January through July for the upcoming school year, which gives us enough time for the visa process to take place for a start date in August. If you apply between August through December, there are fewer chances of securing a role with our district, given that our school year starts in August.

For more information, please review our Visa Sponsorship Guide (ENGLISH) or Visa Sponsorship Guide (SPANISH).

For questions about Visa Sponsorship, email internationaleducator@dpsk12.org